Ads Top

Aliko Dangote Biography, Net worth, Family and Others

Aliko Dangote Biography

Aliko dangote, a popular name in Africa and someone everyone wants to associate with as the richest man in Africa. Many are surprised about how such a man can attain such great height in the business world. Some are motivated to start their business.

Really wealth comes with fame.
I can tell, you have heard of Aliko Dangote more than 10 times.
But I can assure you that there is more you don’t know about him.
Recently a lot of people have been asking questions on Aliko Dangote’s net worth, biography and life story.

Here at Gurus Coach, I will be writing the story life of this great man, Aliko Dangote.
I will be discussing how Aliko Dangote rose to the top as the richest man in Africa.

This is a series I just started.
In this series, I will be writing on biographies of great men like Femi Otedola, Mike Adenuga and many more.
Stay tuned as I discuss the life story of Great men and women in Nigeria.

Aliko Dangote Background

Aliko Dangote was born on theh 10th of April 1957 in Kano, Nigeria. He was born into a wealthy muslim family.
His mother’s name is ariya Aliko while his maternal grandfather is Sanusi Dantata.

He has three siblings – Sani Dangote, Bello Dangote and a younger brother who lost his life in an air crash in Kano.

Though born into a wealthy family, he never allowed himself to be too dependent on his family.
Born into a wealthy family, what you could have expected is to be too pampered. But it was a different thing for him.

While growing, Dangote already had the business instinct and started early while in primary school. This is a rare occurrence to see.
While growing up in primary school, He would buy cartons of sweets (candy) and would sell them to his friends, just to make money.

He once said in an interview:
“I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets [ candy ] and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time.”

He was raised by his maternal grandfather, Sanusi Dangote, who was once one of the wealthiest man in West Africa at the time.
Dangote studied business studies and graduated from Al-Azahar University, Cairo, Egypt. After graduating, Dangote started his business fully.

At the age of 21, Aliko Dangote borrowed $2500 from his uncle to import and sell agricultural commodities to Nigeria.
$2500 dollars at that time was N500,000 naira because naira still had value.

He moved from kano to lagos to start his full fledged business importing rice form Thailand and sugar from Brazil.

His business grew faster than planned and he was able to repay his uncle’s loan after three months of starting his business.
This quick repayment of the loan was due to how fast his business grew.

The venture became successful. Dangote claims on some of best days he was realizisng a daily net profit of $10,000. This allowed him to repay his loans within three months.
In 1997, the Dangote group was established.

In the early stage, it was established as a small trading firm the same year dangote relocated to Lagos to expand his company.
Moving to lagos, he had the intention of manufacturing rather than importing.

He has always imported commodities but saw a need to stop importing and start manufacturing.
This decision contributed to the rapid growth of Dangote company.
The result of this was the establishment of plants to produce sugar, flour and pasta.

Just around the same time, Dangote was awarded a state – owned cement company.
Not long after he was awarded, he built a multi-million dollars cement manufacturing plant in 2005 with $319 million dollars of his own money and a $479 million dollar loan from the World bank international finance corporation.

Without this loan, he would not have been able to build his cement manufacturing plant in 2005.
The company’s revenue since the inception of the cement manufacturing plant grew faster.
This rapid growth helped Dangote in moving into other African countries.

Dangote has always invested majority of his profits back into his businesses, which is one reason the company has grown since inception.

Aliko Dangote in an interview has once said that:
“We, Dangote Group, are not doing like other Africans who keep most of their money in the bank.

We do not keep money in the bank. We fully invest whatever we have and we keep on investing.”
His $16.6 billion dollar fortune comes from Dangote cement , which is the largest cement producer in Africa.

The company now operates in other African countries including Cameroon, Benin, Ghana, South Africa, Togo, Zambia and Tanzania.

Today, Dangote group with its dominance in the sugar market and refinery business is the main supplier to the country’s soft drinks companies.

It is the largest refinery in Africa and the third largest in the world, produce 800,000 tonnes of sugar annually.
Dangote recently has diversified into telecommunications and started building 14,000 kilometres of fibre optic cable to supply the whole of Nigeria.

He once said:
“Let me tell you this and I want to really emphasize it…. Nothing is going to help Nigerians bringing back their money. If you gave me $5 billion dollars today, I will invest everything here in Nigeria. Let us put our head together and work.”
Family
Aliko Dangote is married and lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

He has been married four times, and his first three marriages ended in divorce.
He has a total of fifteen children from these marriages.
His first marriage which was to a young woman his family selected for him in May 1977. This marriage did not work out for long for reasons not well known to all.

After the divorce, Aliko Dangote later got married to Mariya A.D Muhoammad Rufair, a Senator’s daughter. Rumours had it that there was a romance between the richest man in Africa and Queen of beauty of 2013, Sylvia Nduka.
Among the children of Dangote are Halima Bello (Dangote), Mariya Dangote – Fatima Dangote.

The three of them reportedly studied and graduated from the best universities in the United Kingdom.
Halima holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from the American intercontinental university, London, United Kingdom (2005), and a masters’ in Business Administration (MBA) obtained from Webster Business school, London, also in the UK (2006).

Fatima Dangote one of Dangote’s daughters got married to the pilot son of Former Inspector General (IG) of Police, MD Abubakar.
The wedding which took place at Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos, had in attendance great men like Bill Gate, Femi Otedola and other great men.

Another person you should know is Sani Dangote, Aliko Dangote’s brother.
He is the Vice President of Dangote Group and sits on the board of several other companies.

He is also the deputy chairman of African Gum Arabic Producers Association, a fellow of the Nigeria Institute of Supply and President of the Fertilise Producer & Suppliers Association.

Aliko Dangote's Net Worth

Aliko Dangote has a current networth of $7.4 billion dollars in 2020 which saw a drop to his net worth at 2019.

Though his net worth saw a drop from $10 billion dollars in 2019 to $7.4 billion dollars, he is still the richest man in Nigeria and Africa.